Computing devices rely on processors in order to run applications and execute other tasks. Application developers often design their applications to be run by a specific type of processor architecture. Because different computing devices often implement different processor architectures, problems arise when an application designed for one processor architecture is run by a computing device implementing another processor architecture. For example, a host computing device that implements an x86-based processor architecture would encounter problems when attempting to execute arithmetic instructions of a guest application or operating system, such as an application designed to be run by a processor architecture other than the host x86-based processor architecture. These problems arise because arithmetic flags in one processor architecture often do not map directly to arithmetic flags of a different processor architecture.
As a conventional solution, the host computing device uses an emulator that converts instructions of the guest application to x86-based instructions that can be run by the host processor architecture. However, emulator conversions require additional clock cycles to compute and thus introduce a slowdown when an application designed for a guest processor architecture is run on a host processor architecture. Conventional emulator techniques implement “lazy flags” to emulate arithmetic flags between different processor architectures. However, these conventional emulator techniques waste clock cycles by emulating arithmetic flags even when these arithmetic flags are not needed to properly execute the guest application. Because arithmetic flag emulations occur frequently when running an application, conventional emulation techniques cause unnecessary delay and detract from the intended performance of an emulated application.